EVANSTON Ill. - The LSU Lady Tiger Tennis team began the 2012 season in style winning six out of their first seven singles matches against University of Illinois at Chicago on Friday inside the Combe Tennis Center on the Northwestern campus.

Senior Whitney Wolf began the day defeating Mariya Kavaleva 6-2, 6-0 as the senior Pride, La. native has now won nine of her last 11 singles matches.

Olivia Howlett kept it going for the Lady Tigers by beating Polina Guimaraes 6-4, 6-2. Kaitlin Burns took down Teona Tsertsvadze 7-5, 6-3 and Keri Frankenberger cruised 6-1, 6-0 over Elisa Simonetti. Rebecca Bodine began her first spring campaign at LSU with a 6-4, 6-2 win over Jana Knoppe. Ariel Morton finished the first matches of the day off for LSU with a 6-1, 6-0 victory over Kathryn Sharples. Yvette Vlaar fell to Hayler Craig 6-4, 6-3.

"We played really well in singles today, so I was really pleased" LSU Head Coach Tony Minnis said. "In doubles we need to continue to work tomorrow to get better, but it was a solid day overall."

Later in the afternoon, LSU had a trio of doubles matches against DePaul. Wolf and Frankenberger led things off with a closely contested 9-8 victory Jasmine Kling and Gia McKnight. Patricia Fargas and Rebeca Mitrea defeated Howlett and Vlaar 8-4, but Burns and Morton took the third match 8-5 over Cali Gustafson and Carolin Neumann.

The Tigers closed the day with another three doubles matches, this time against the hosts and No. 12 ranked Northwestern Wildcats. Linda Abu Mushrefova and Veronica Corning took down Wolf and Keri Frankenberger, 8-4. Nida Hamilton and Belinda Niu paired to defeat Howlett and Vlaar in a tension-filled 9-8 match. Turvy and Wowchuk downed Burns and Morton, 8-3 to close out the first day of competition in the 2012 season.

The Wildcat Invitational will resume Saturday at 9:30 a.m. CT.

For the latest information on the women's tennis team, follow the Lady Tigers on Twitter @lsuwten and on www.facebook.com/lsuwten.